please come here breaking news in r.t. deaths confirmed in a blast that ripped through a thirty lies a plant in the u.s. state of texas also leaving over one hundred injured. in. the blast that registered as a two point one magnitude seismic event leveled many buildings at the time of west with five tearing through apartment complexes schools and houses rescue services fear the number of dead could climb as many people could be buried under the rubble . and i welcome you watching r.t. coming chief live from moscow. now our top story our top stories you've been hearing there have been confirmed fatalities after an

explosion at a fertilizer plant in the town of west just north of waco in texas local media reports said as many as seventy people had been killed many buildings surrounding the fertilizer plant were completely flattened by the blast and police and emergency services are still removing people from the rubble with me now is sean thomas he joins us we've been following this now for the last few hours sean. in terms of the emergency response it seems to be in hand it seems to have been a very coordinated response we've looked at the pictures they are devastating and yet there have been strains and i'm going to place how we coped as people are being airlifted to hospital is this was a coordinated response wasn't something that they had been prepared for certainly in this is what little towns big cities they do they prepare for these emergencies and they work together with other law enforcement emergency response teams and fire departments to make sure that they can handle any level of emergency so this small town of less than three thousand people doesn't have

a very big force in fact they're the ones who are probably initially right there on the scene given the scope of that fire there was already probably other agencies responding to help them out because it was a large fire i mean you may have heard the term one alarm two alarm five alarm fire because of the chemicals in place this was probably a five alarm fire where other teams were coming in already when the training does what it's supposed to do that's a good thing unfortunately the only way you can test if the training works is under these very hard circumstances so this very small town suffering significant loss a great percentage of the town every single person in the town in fact affected by this tragedy the entire state will remember this as a great tragedy and a great success for their emergency response teams as well let's just give people an idea of the severity of what we are talking about we can now hear from an eyewitness who saw the blast.

he's going here. without chilling just gives us an idea that second blast we believe what happened was an initial fire fun and went to that and then there was a secondary blast far bigger than the first fire we could see and that's what caused the problems and we can also now hear from a spokesperson from the mission's he says this is who also arrived at the st shortly after that blast. i can tell you i was there i walked through the blast area i searched some houses earlier tonight massive just like iraq just like the murray building in oklahoma city same kind of exploded so you can imagine what kind of damage we're looking out there. i know that was at least seventy five to fifty fifty to seventy five houses damaged there's apartment complex that has about fifty

units in it that was completely. just skeleton standing there's a nursing home in the area that one hundred thirty three people in the nursing home we've got them evacuated i don't know what their injuries are are there right now but all injuries have been removed from the scene and taken to local hospitals in the waco where we had numerous agencies helping us all the way from the dallas fort worth area mclennan county limestone bosky and all the surrounding areas so we've had a great turnout. to come out to help us get through this tragedy that we've had in this small community. well let's just get the latest now from a correspondent who was at the scene in west their mangling though romana thank you for your time again you're the same we hit the police sergeant said that there are confirmed fatalities but hasn't given a number local media were reporting was as high as seventy can you give an estimation of of the number of fatalities or in your opinion is it still too early

to say. they are still searching in the collapsed buildings which were near the blast site the presumption is that there may be some bodies still in the rubble a very dangerous area given the fact that there is a tile container containing chemicals there still at the plant which firefighters are keeping an eye on. dozens of people confirmed definitely to have been taken to the hospital. authorities are still holding on holding off on an exact number but earlier the mayor of west texas described the scene as almost a nuclear bomb and. mentioned the fact that tomorrow a lot of people who live in this town will not be here just to give you

a little bit more perspective we were able to get slightly closer to the scene compared to when we talked to you last time in the downtown area texas. still a considerable distance away from the blast scene itself. several buildings here have had their windows completely blown out there's glass scattered all over the downtown area of. town again only twenty six hundred people a lot of old buildings have had their windows taken out so this is a blast that was felt and seen this area definitely just to give you an idea we just had a nice six firefighters have been killed in this incident and almost itunes the service work is one police officer has been concerned that. just when he does underline the destruction that has been cola's doesn't with many hospitals still receiving many injured people and potentially there are dozens of people who are still under the rubble. absolutely what we're hearing from local

firefighters here is that ball and tears and first responders who do it as a profession were quick to rush to the fire when on the show you happened and were unfortunately caught up in the blast we heard from a firefighter earlier here talking to a local reporters who was helping evacuated a senior center which is very close to the block. they were able to evacuate the center but still collapsed and did end up hurting some people. a lot of rubble fell on top of a firefighter who fortune was wearing a helmet and yet when this firefighter was talking to a local reporter as he was bloodied and wanted to get back to rescuing people who were injured in the blast definitely a small town authorities from all over the texas area have come to respond so there has definitely been a very coordinated response these people are definitely overwhelmed any time i ask

sort of first responder how many they've treated how many casualties and they just seem overwhelmed they don't know what sort of answer to this is an emergency that has been been seen and it's town which neighbor said so far just described as a quiet town where things such as this will never happen we can see the physical damage this pinkos that from some pictures that have arrived to this throughout the day but there's also a concern isn't there about the toxins that are not being released from this plant . absolutely as soon as we arrived on scene we talked to a state trooper who said that part of the town was being evacuated and possible contingency plans are being put into place right now in case the winds change here in central texas and humans are blown towards the other end of the town even here. where we are located and downtown area of the town we're still being kept

quite a distance for our homes i personally do not smell any human that this moment but i can tell you that the winds are strong. besides actual risk of more explosions there at the plant we're also dealing with the environmental risk of toxic fumes in the air over central texas and in terms of the emergency response money that if it is in hand there's been a very strong coordinated response from many counties involved in this and it is an event which they could not have predicted but it is something that they have prepared for. absolutely we talked to first responders who came from as far as eighty miles away further than dallas texas. they were able to set up a tree behind the community center here hundreds of local first responders from throughout texas they're able to create a tree there near the community center and by the time that we were here took

a couple of hours to drive here from austin most of the pretty much all the patients had been transported to the community center and other locations here in town have been converted into evacuation centers and donation centers while we're there before we were removed by police there was a lot of food and water being brought in as far as mobile response the authorities were very quick to do so. and were able to transport dozens of victims over to local hospitals here and have you been i was told to any eyewitnesses on what is the sense i can understand it must be complete desperation that what people tell jane. people completely. obviously when you try to get the facts about what happened where why you can see the shock still many people's eyes not knowing what to do but they want

to help in some sort of way when i talk to some of the neighbors. described seeing a huge mushroom cloud something that. every day especially in a small town like this right now people mostly in shock. with their journey going to look like tomorrow but. unfortunately. quite a bit of tragedy they're still in the rubble. was telling us earlier in that press conference that. the damage to unravel when daylight bright is that you know anticipation. absolutely i mentioned downtown where many buildings have their windows blown out. and were quite a distance from the plant itself. the reports that lead to city blocks are completely just demolished and the damage. beyond.

we are likely to see a pretty devastating scene so for first responders who have been able to describe it as we described it as a. comparison to iraq we shall see a bit devastating but from first responders here who have responded to other emergencies worldwide they were definitely shocked about what they saw and in terms of the people that have to be evacuated not where are they being the. community centers that people have chosen to go with friends and families and even local hotels. we did talk to some neighbors who are still. here in the downtown area it is virtually a ghost town. i believe in the morning here. it is typically that at this hour so in the next few hours we should be. a better picture of what sort of

damage was really caused to this small town. and we will leave it there for the moment thank you very much for that update automatically to his the scene in the town of west the scene of that devastating blast at the fertilizer plant police say they have been confirmed fatalities the actual size of the blast was two point one on the richter scale it gives you an idea of how big it was and flattened many many buildings in the area many people are still being pulled out of the rubble as i speak police still going to each building searching each one very carefully to try and find any survivors but at the moment all we know is that there are concerns that type of things although local media was reporting shortly after the blast it was as high as seventy but that as i stress we cannot confirm exactly what time or to sean thomas with this shown. your man familiar with the states we were talking about earlier about the government's potential response to this given the real

tension in the fear that must be in society there at the moment just days after the boston bombings. the. it is a very tense environment in terms of what's happening united states you have the boston bombings you have the rice in the letters that have gone to the president and to the senate as well as so everybody has in on a heightened alert you also have a very tenuous anniversary if you will this april nineteenth twenty years ago almost exactly to the waco disaster that happened in this exact same area and then also just a couple years after that you heard this first responder talking about the murray oklahoma building in oklahoma city that happened on april nineteenth one thousand nine hundred five so. very likely disasters happening at such an eerie time so all of this is going to be considered the white house in the obama administration has

said that they are monitoring the situation through local contacts on the ground very carefully but i don't suspect you're going to hear much from them until the actual investigation takes place because it is a very tense situation as you mentioned and they don't want to add any more fuel to that fire they're going to be play this very close to be very cautious because they don't want to incite any more panic. and they absolutely have to so at the moment the officials that we will hear from you believe will be the emergency services on the ground to the white house in the spokespeople from that will take a step back and that's and that's pretty much how it works is that you have that first initial response which was very quick to get those local first responders to the scene and unfortunately we're hearing that some of those aren't accounted for at this moment in time so there's concern there we heard that there was fire e.m.'s and law enforcement all responding to that initial disaster but then you have people coming in from other parts of the county other parts of the state federal emergency resources coming in hazmat teams coming in and if you look at that scene

of emergency lights around the tree center and we know that there are law enforcement officials and emergency responders going house to house trying to pull people from the rubble as. this emergency evolves and continues to evolve you just see a level of professionalism and training this is what these people do they are professional emergency responders and this is this is what their careers are based on here so let's just update people because i did say before they had been confirmed fatalities of that actually a number and then we did hear that six firefighters have been killed two missions the service workers and one police officer has been confirmed dead that was just after the police sergeant from waco gave a live press conference. to the media let's just say if we can what has he said and basically what he encountered when he got to the scene and what emergency services now have to do. at this time we all feel fine t.v.

thank you well. we're going out to house business to business we're seeing quite a bit of devastation in that area what they're trying to do is move people away still they're having to be very cautious because the rough rule they need to hold. we have to be very cautious because. there are the gas lines gas are still in the system or here they have been are. getting off the main flow of gas natural gas they're cutting off power sure we don't have security fire from electricity for fire things. so honestly we're still there. maybe a few feet here is shifting p.d. i can tell you that the mayor and has been to you earlier tonight he is also a firefighter for this shit it is taking a toll on him because he knows that if you leave your last fire but i can confirm

that there may be firefighters that are on the county for the potentially along for the mall for sure but we're still trying to determine that obviously they were there all she reckoned i think being fighting the fire and helping with the thank you what we do we don't know what hard numbers the howdy doody we can give them we give them. so just to again reiterate he did mention there and he confirmed fatalities sorry confirmed fatalities didn't give a number but since then we have learned the six firefighters have been killed two nations the service workers and one police officer have been confirmed dead i think that really does underline the dangers that they are facing and just to give everybody an idea of the size of this blast we can now say some incredible footage taken. by an eyewitness i think on his phone just off the blast. thank you i think. you know. so you can hear that spared the

terror in the voices there we've also spoken so you will eyewitnesses have been given giving their accounts also to the media and we can now hear from more of them . i don't know exactly what happened i just now want joyce and i got down there. to go check on her kids on that pass the nursing home which their house blew up. then i jumped out we were on the corner of the nursing home. and started to work and people were just. about i don't know but we've. got people in there to help and they ran down the hall which was totally blown out . of this sitting place you know for your. dog to interfere. with told me to go to new cameras in the

walking. supposing. we remembered rescue for the journey for virtually pushing you back. in the strip mall or if. you feel she could ever be shut up in the structure of the whole thing at your. worst thing ever since. so that footage in those comments there from eyewitnesses really does give you a flavor horrifying flavor of what happened. in the town of west just north of waco in texas when that fertilizer plant exploded we can get more reaction i can she joins us from the states since we last spoke you may have heard the six firefighters have been killed two motions the service workers and one police officer have been confirmed dead. that obviously a result of the extremely house is this conditions they have faced but also there's now concern about this the toxins that are being released by this plant and also the weather conditions locally at the moment can you tell us any more about those

concerns. well absolutely andrew high winds as we heard from the police from the spokesperson of the police department of this city of wacko in in texas they're saying that the wind is now they're concerned that the fire is no longer a threat that they have contained the fire but the wind continues to spread these chemicals and it takes them to other residential areas so we know that. the toxic fumes that are still being released from the scene of the explosion they have her rescue efforts and we know that more than one hundred seventy people are now in hospitals have been hospitalized in many of them have ammonia. are suffering ammonia elation so they are they are being treated there

we. we have. six firefighters we have confirmed dead six firefighters two medical professionals and one police officer but as far as numbers that number could be the number of fatalities could be higher but officials are very much reluctant to to confirm numbers as as of now but what it is it doesn't need any confirmation is the devastation that the explosion caused that is very much visible and the reason why that figure could be much higher the fatality figure is because so many buildings were demolished by this massive explosion when she's pushing for she again you can see it in a couple of seconds but that is flattened so many buildings and police and emergency services one having to go to each building almost door to door to try and search for people that might be there and that in itself must be a very painstaking process would. take a long time to do so absolutely. exactly but it this is this is this is

a small town of around three thousand people so they are going there truly from door to door as the spokesperson of the police department said looking for people who are stuck in the rubble or just trapped in their homes at the moment so that number could be much higher there could be we we heard initial reports actually the local media reported from the very beginning that there were at least seventy people dead and of course this this has not been confirmed yet we really don't know the scale of the of the catastrophe but what we heard from the medical professional from from. a medical professional from one of the two hospitals that accepted the victims of this of this explosion he said i have never seen anything of this magnitude so this is the kind of situation that they're dealing with and let's just

listen again we have got a quick interview with a doctor who is one of the local hospitals treating the victims and this is what he told us a little earlier. having the. the patients from the from the blast right now we have seen a sixty five patients one of which is critical the majority of the ones we've seen have had a variety of broken bones head injuries and a lot of them have had an hydrous ammonia inhalation from the from the fertilizer plant we have had a massive response from our medical our doctors our nurses our respiratory therapist and they have been able to treat in release most of the ones who have who have had the the exposure to the to the ammonia we have had twelve admissions of

the sixty five patients we have seen we prepare. every day for disasters i will say i have been here for thirty years i have never seen anything to the to this magnitude but i've been very tactful that that we plan for this day and again we do this on a routine basis we have a automated call system where where when we see a disaster and automatically rings phones of our staff and our staff responded in a matter of minutes we trained for chemical. spill to train train for. trauma automobile we train for of a variety of different things whether scenarios which is probably the biggest thing we look for in central texas but yes we train for chemical up chemical disasters we

remain on on the full full staff waiting for anything that that else that might come through. we do know that there was a nursing home that was. pretty much destroyed we have done some of the elderly folks who have been since transferred to other nursing homes in our area in other words like they could not go back where they were so serious there is plans in place to be on on alert for the rest leading on into tomorrow that was the voice case helped him to talk to one of the hospitals and he's not treating the injuries and when i'm joined by ways to gaston and i witness of the tragedy let me thank you very much for coming on to today first and can you tell us what you still well. look at. probably maybe five minutes when the big blast and the

blast. and it came towards. my car like a mushroom cloud. but it cracked windshield and then we heard a big boom and. all that happened there was debris flying from so we went ahead and got out of there and we left and then we came back into town but it was awful and what did you see when you came back into time. well. couple parker. related there was more and more parker going in and the board perimeter around a community. i mean here. and in terms of the devastation that was closed we've heard many reports that many buildings were actually flattened by this blast what if you sing. grew out of. it like a tornado where it's like

a war zone debris old the street no windows. no no we're. there. and there's the real concern that many people are still trapped under the rubble. yes i've heard that there were but there was a lot of. hard. and into in terms of the plant itself at this stage we don't know too much of back to you but i mean even if in the community with this what would what was the relationship with the community with people happy with the plan of being been speculation it could have been a safety issue with the plan what you'll impression i know it's very easy to say what caused this but what she will impression. i'm not sure what we're called although i don't know if water works and in terms of the relationship that this firm has with the community is that always been good.